"Local readers who may chance on a copy of Richard Hillary's "Falling through Space," recently published in New York, will be interested to find the airman whose story is absorbingly told received part of his training in pre-war days at Montrose R.A.F. Station where life was very agreeable and the squadron comparatively inactive though they knew that at no very distant date the war would be upon them; but momentarily it was remote and they were enjoying themselves.

"In the time when it was possible to get away from the station for a couple of days, most of us motored up to Invermark where Lord Dalhousie had kindly turned over his shooting lodge to us.

"Here in the deep stillness of the mountains it was possible to relax, and the war, if it penetrated at all, was wafted up as the breath of the vulgarity of another world.

"We shot grouse and fished on the loch, and on one occasion after an arduous day's stalking I shot a stag; but I am no sportsman and the dying look in the beast's eye resolved me to confine my killing to Germans."

"The writer goes on:- Two pilots with whom I flew, Stapme Stapleton and Bubble Waterson, let me in on the secret of how they employed their time off.

"It would have surprised an outsider to whom they must have seemed a typical pair of easy-going pilots who might be expected to spend their leaves in a too-fast car with a too loud blonde.

"In point of fact they played hide-and-seek with a dozen small children evacuated for the summer to Tarfside, a tiny hamlet near Invermark. They had come from the more vulnerable towns in the district and went to school at Brechin. But for the holidays they came to the mountains under the care of Mrs Davie, the admirable and unexacting mother of two of them.

"How Stapme and Bubble discovered them I never found out, but from the moment I saw these children I too was under their spell. That they really came from Brechin, that thin-blooded Wigan of the north. I was not prepared to admit.

"Ranging in age from 6 to 16, kilted, and tanned by the sun, they were so essentially right against that back-ground of heather, burns and pine. In the general confusion of introductions, one little fellow, the smallest, was left out. He approached me slowly with a grave face. I'm Ratface, he said.

"How are you, Ratface?" I asked.
"Quite well, thank you. You can pick me up if you like.
"I gave him a pick-a-back, and all day we played rounders, hide-and-seek, or picnicked, and as evening drew on we climbed up into the old hayloft and told stories, Stapme, Bubble and I striving to outdo one another.

"The legend of the children spread through the Squadron, and no three machines would return from a practice flight without first sweeping in tight formation low along the bed of the valley where the children, grouped by the road would wave and shout and dance in ecstasy."

There was another story of an evacuee in local news, John who wanted to go home, and ended up hitch-hiking from Brechin to Birmingham.

"An 11-year-old Birmingham boy who was evacuated to friends in Brechin more than a year ago got home sick the other week and decided to cycle the 400-odd miles which lie between Brechin and Birmingham.

"He did it too - with the help of some well-disposed lorry drivers and others - in only three days, and with the police on his trail all the way, but never quite capturing him.

"John Voaden had been staying at Mill of Balrownie, Little Brechin, with Mrs Collins, who used to be his mother's neighbour in Birmingham, and he cycled into the High School in the town every day.

"He set out on his adventure, without telling a soul, except a school chum who did not believe him, one afternoon after school. He took his ration book and 5s 6d in his pocket.

"When John did not return to Balrownie that evening Mrs Collins became anxious and informed the police. But by that time John had reached Perth, having got a lift from a lorry driver a few miles out of Brechin.

"He spent the night in a cottage at Dupplin. Next morning he got away early before his hostess had time to get in touch with the police, and by night was a long, long way from Brechin, having managed to hitch-hike to Northallerton.

"Next day he got a good stage further by motor lorry, and spent the night in the driver's cabin.

"Next day on again, and it was only on the very last stage of his journey that he had to use his bicycle. He rode up to his own gate just at tea-time, three days after leaving Brechin, much to his mother's relief and joy for she knew he had left Brechin and was probably heading home.

"John's trip cost him 5s 5d. He reached Birmingham with a penny in his pocket."